The Lift All Boats Team
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Because of his success as an entrepreneur and nonprofit leader, Ben is a nationally sought-after leadership consultant and executive coach in the education, nonprofit, and private sector. His clients include finance and tech startups, philanthropies, charter school networks, and design firms. Ben is a champion of growth.
Ben is the founder and former CEO of Collegiate Academies, a network of innovative public high schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, serving 3,500 of the most disadvantaged children in our nation. Collegiate Academies’ student populations have some of the highest rates of poverty, disability, incarceration, and academic deficit in the state. Many enter the ninth grade on a fourth-grade level or lower in both reading and math. Yet, after over a decade of developing and utilizing a set of proven tools, over 90 percent of Collegiate Academies students earn college admission. Ben’s work alongside Collegiate Academies has won him various awards and recognition, including accolades from the Accelerate Institute, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and multiple “Best Places to Work” prize committees.
Most recently, Ben has founded Lift All Boats, which transforms schools through sustainable leadership pipeline development. Lift All Boats teaches an organization's leaders immediately applicable skills, skills which they then spread to their own emerging leaders. The LAB curriculum is based on content that Ben developed and delivered over more than a decade of successful leadership and leader coaching.
Ben holds a B.A. from Yale University and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before founding Collegiate Academies, Ben taught middle school and high school in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Boston. He has served on the faculties of New Leaders, Leading Educators, Future Leaders in the United Kingdom, and the Relay Graduate School of Education. Ben has been a fellow at the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Achievement First's Charter Network Accelerator, the Pahara-Aspen Institute, Cambiar Education, and the Broad Academy.
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Aidan believes that great leadership and great teaching can be taught, and he has over 15 years of experience helping teachers and leaders to grow into the best versions of themselves. As the Chief Academic Officer of Collegiate Academies, Aidan helped lead a network of five high schools and two postsecondary programs through post-pandemic reopening, all while building teams with the mindsets and skills to serve all students. Under Aidan’s leadership, Collegiate increased graduation rates, postsecondary enrollment rates, and the percentage of students scoring proficient or higher on state exams. Aidan also led the large-scale adoption and implementation of high-quality curriculum and a huge expansion in dual enrollment classes, ensuring that all students had access to rigor and opportunity.
Aidan has a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree from Relay Graduate School of Education. In addition to serving as a teacher, school-based leader and district leader at Collegiate Academies, Aidan was an assistant professor of practice at Relay GSE, and got his start teaching math at an alternative school as a Teach For America corps member.
As Director of Lift All Boats, Aidan helps organizations accelerate their outcomes and transform their culture through customized, comprehensive leadership development programming. Lift All Boats teaches an organization's leaders immediately applicable skills, skills which they then spread to their own emerging leaders. You'll find Aidan facilitating workshops, coaching leaders, and guiding potential partners through every stage of their relationship with Lift All Boats.
“Thanks again for the caring way you bring people through this thoughtful curriculum and give us a platform for raising the bar for excellence at CCS.”